Tom Cruise is at an engagement party pretending to be normal, which mostly involves making drinks, studying "traffic patterns", and quietly alarming everyone in the room. Within minutes, he’s thrown all the ice into the backyard, taken a mysterious call, and disappeared to Berlin before anyone can question the growing puddle on the lawn. His fiancée accepts this without hesitation, which is honestly a great starting point for everyone here.

This is J.J. Abrams’ $150 million debut, handed to him because Tom Cruise watched Alias at 2 a.m. and trusted the vibes. The result is a movie powered less by logic and more by momentum counterbalanced by Philip Seymour Hoffman calmly counting to ten. Around that, we sit back and enjoy the spectacle: Vatican break-ins, exploding highways, helicopter chases, and an aggressively unexplained Rabbit's Foot.

Nick, Elise, and Anthony sort through the chaos, from defribulated brain bombs, to Ving Rhames operating rollerball sniper cannons, to Laurence Fishburne delivering an all-time GOATed Ted Talk on the power of rehetorical questions. We are all Julia today, as we go from trusting fiancée to action-ready medic in about forty-eight hours, and nobody stops to process any of it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to not throw the party ice in the yard.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317919/